The present invention relates to a chamber to a chamber combination, to a vacuum treatment facility, as well as to a transport method.
For the transport of workpieces, particularly of storage disks, such as CD's, magnetic or magneto-optic storage disks, in a chamber of a vacuum treatment facility, for example, for the treatment of the workpieces by reactive or non-reactive vacuum processes, such as etching processes, physical or chemical coating processes with or without glow discharge support, it has been known for a long time to provide a plurality of workpiece receiving devices which can be rotated jointly about an axis in an alignment with provided exterior openings of the chamber. Reference can be made in this respect to U.S. Pat. No. 3,856,654 or German Patent Document DEPS 24 54 544.
According to U.S. Pat. No. 3,856,654, it is known to rotate frame-type workpiece receiving devices in the chamber about an axis in the manner of a carrousel. When a frame containing the workpiece has reached the alignment position with the exterior opening of the chamber on which a working station is mounted, the workpiece is pushed into the treatment position by means of a lifting element which operates in parallel to the axis of rotation. This resulted in a three-dimensional displacement path for the workpieces, specifically in two dimensions according to the plane of rotation of the carrousel and in a third dimension, in parallel to the axis of rotation of the carrousel out of the chamber.
German Patent Document DE-PS 24 54 544 suggests a configuration in which the displacement path in the third dimension is reduced considerably in order to achieve a more compact construction of the facility. For this purpose, the workpieces are displaced in the treatment position only slightly in parallel to the axis within the framework of the suspension by means of which workpiece receiving frames are disposed on the rotating carrousel so that they can be displaced in the axial direction. For this purpose, a ram, which is mounted to be aligned with the respective exterior opening with the treatment station, engages on the workpiece holding frame, opposite the treatment chamber. Thus the wall of the treatment station mounted to the exterior opening of the chamber is completed by means of a part rotating with the carrousel.
In the case of the facilities according to German Patent Documents DE-OS 39 12 295, 40 09 603, 37 16 498 and European Patent Document EP-A 0 389 820, this principle is also pursued in partially constructive variants.
However, in the manufacturing processes, particularly of the above-mentioned circular-disk-shaped workpieces, it becomes more and more necessary to carry out a plurality of individual treatment steps on a corresponding number of treatment stations. The approach in which the workpieces in the treatment position were lifted only minimally on the transport plane of the workpiece holding carrousel is only a limited remedy in this case because the available space on the chamber with the carrousel is limited.